In the town were I grew up there was a train tunnel, over a mile long, about a block from my house on the wrong side of town. The summer I turned 15 I spent months considering this yawning black hole, studying it from all angles; one day I walked out the front door knowing that the time had come. The air in the tunnel was cool, damp and thick as mustard. I had walked for 10 minutes before I let myself think about the possibility of a train; in either direction the outside world was a pale smear, as far away as the person I had become. There was an eternity of blackness, the rail beneath my feet and course railway gravel. As minutes passed the bright summer day once again came into view, illuminating a family of dead raccoons. I broke into a run. As I exited the tunnel I turned and climbed the hill, legs shaking as the train finally came into view- bursting out of the tunnel mouth like a live thing, dragon from the cave, the longest train I had ever seen on that track before or since: a full ten minutes passing. I sat in the shade of an ancient oak and watched it roll by. A single dark line of smoke rose from the engine, leaving a dark smudge against a cloudless blue sky.